DIY outdoor curtains

 

I have been wanting to put up something to block the setting sun on our back porch since we moved in. It’s hard to have conversation and enjoy your meal when the sun is glaring in your eyes, right?  And we have lived here for 2 years and we’re just getting around to it which is right on Melissa schedule. :)


Since there was no place to mount regular curtain rod brackets and they don’t make tension rods long enough, we decided to go with a really inexpensive route is to use electrical conduit tubing! You can find this in the electrical section and they come in different lengths of tube.



We got the 3/4” X 10 ft poles (only $3-$4!!) but the length we needed was just over 10 feet, so you can just buy these connectors (the proper name is an EMT set screw coupling) and connect your tubes together.
 

You can have them cut it for you in the store, or take it home and use a regular old hacksaw to cut through it. I laid them out in the garage and spray painted them a black/oil rubbed bronze.



To mount them we just used closet pole sockets in oil rubbed bronze. To mount to the exterior hardy board siding, we needed to use special decking or cement board screws.




For the curtains, drop cloths seemed to make most sense since they are a heavier material, and I can just unclip them at the end of the season. And did I mention they are only $20 for both? We used the 9X12 dropcloth, cut down the seam (the seams have been right down the middle for all the of the drop cloths I have used, thank goodness!) and then hemmed them using a basic straight stitch on the sewing machine. Or you could totally use hot glue or iron on adhesive to hem. Then, just hang with some curtain rings (if your rings need to go over the connector, you’ll want to use 2” rings). You can’t even hardly see where we connected the the 2 tubes.



They keep the sun from the deck in the evenings (this was an afternoon picture!) and add a bit of homey-ness to the porch. When we’re not using them, I just tie a ribbon around  each of them to keep them from flapping in the wind and we will unclip them and store them at the end of the season.



So, for
$5 in electrical pipe
$2 in connectors
$3 for pole brackets
$20 in drop cloths
$4 for spray paint
and some extra black curtain rings I had in my stash, this project was a total of:
$34
Not too shabby! This would be a great way to make inexpensive curtain rods as well. Thanks for stopping by – have a good day!